Sarpaneva Korona – Finnish Watchmaking

Watchmaking is not limited to Switzerland, or Germany, or Japan. We’ve seen a lot of nice watches coming from other parts in the world as well, like The Netherlands, the UK, Sweden and in this case, Finland. Stepan Sarpaneva was born and raised in Finland, educated by the Finnish School of Watchmaking and flew out to Switzerland for even more horological education followed by work for a number of prestigious watchmakers and manufacturers. Back in Finland, Stepan concentrated on his own timepieces called Korona.

In the recent past, Ming Thein did a hands-on review of Stepan Sarpaneva’s K3 Northern Stars timepiece (click here to read) accompanied by some dazzling photographs of the watch. You don’t see Sarpaneva watches that often, so when the opportunity was there for us we grabbed it and made some photos of Sarpaneva’s creations during BaselWorld 2012.

We were most impressed by the Korona Moonshine watch and the Korona K0 (pictured above) timepieces. Easy and comfortable to wear and you do have the feeling that you are wearing something really exclusive. Wearing a Sarpaneva guarantees interesting conversations with other watch enthusiasts for sure. The Korona Moonshine (pictured below) is a very interesting timepiece with an intriguing dial.

This is probably the biggest moon phase dial available in the market, the aperture to tell the time is only a small part of the dial and it is actually hard to – exactly – tell the actual time. We guess that you are not buying this watch to do so, you have an iPhone for that, right? As you can see, part of the ‘time’-disc is lumed. The luminous part is showing the current position of the moon (moon phase). The Korona Moonshine is the one and only watch available today that presents the moon phase like this.

The Korona case has been used for a few years now, and although it is always a gamble with odd shaped cases, it hasn’t bored us so far. Some times, you’ll see odd shaped cases that are very specific for a certain time or period, the Korona case seems to be a design that could last forever. Like most superb designed products out there. The moonphase’s face on the dial is being crafted out of oxydiced sterling silver or 18K gold.

Like most other watches that Sarpaneva has built, the Korona Moonshine has a modified Soprod A10 calibre movement. The mainplate of this A10 movement has been modified to embed the moonphase complication. As you can see, the rotor has been finished with the famous Sarpaneva unhappy moon face.

This 42mm timepiece is available in stainless steel, gold and in various combinations of finishing and materials.

Another timepiece by the hands of Stepan Sarpaneva is the Korona K0. At first sight, a typical Sarpaneva watch with its Korona case. But wait a minute! It has a diving ring! Unlike many other diving watches who have a rotatable bezel, the Sarpaneva Korona K0 has an inner diving bezel that can be operated with the crown set in the first position. These type of diving rings are not vulnerable for dust, sand and salt water…

Although the diameter of the dial has become a lot smaller because of the diving ring, due to the nice design of the ring it doesn’t feel that way when wearing the watch. The diving ring is part of the dial, perhaps also because it bears the Sarpaneva logo and uses the same colors as the rest of the dial (and movement). Also, since this K0 has a diameter of 46mm, it is all relative of course.

The Korona K0 Diver’s watch comes in a few variations with regards to the dial. We were particularly fond of the blue version above. Like the Moonshine, this K0 also has the modified Soprod movement ticking inside, calibre A10.